When Zombie Banks Walked the Earth 0
Bank profits up. On paper.
This appears to have more to do with eliminating “mark to market” than with improved business practices.
From Bloomberg.
The revival may be short-lived. Analysts who have examined the quarterly profits and government tests say that accounting rule changes and rosy assumptions are making the institutions look healthier than they are.
(snip)
Citigroup’s $1.6 billion in first-quarter profit would vanish if accounting were more stringent, says Martin Weiss of Weiss Research Inc. in Jupiter, Florida. “The big banks’ profits were totally bogus,” says Weiss, whose 38-year-old firm rates financial companies. “The new accounting rules, the stress tests: They’re all part of a major effort to put lipstick on a pig.”
But, hey, these guys are the geniuses who crashed the world economy.
They must know what they are doing.
And what’s Sarah Palin got to with it, anyway?
